


99:00

by 51stCenturyFox



Category: Torchwood
Genre: Canon Relationship, F/M, Het, Timey-Wimey, Trapped
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-04-21
Updated: 2010-04-21
Packaged: 2017-11-06 02:26:21
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,749
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/413699
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/51stCenturyFox/pseuds/51stCenturyFox
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>  The more things stay the same, the more they change.</p>
            </blockquote>





	99:00

**Author's Note:**

> Beta credit goes to copperbadge and neifile7

written for [](http://dark-fest.livejournal.com/profile)[**dark_fest**](http://dark-fest.livejournal.com/)  

 **Title:** 99:00  
 **Author** [](http://51stcenturyfox.livejournal.com/profile)[**51stcenturyfox**](http://51stcenturyfox.livejournal.com/)    
 **Fandom:** Torchwood  
 **Characters/Pairing** : Gwen/Ianto (+ canon pairings)  
 **Rating:** R  


Pushing a hand (and then punching a fist) against the shimmering wall between them and their attacker did nothing. Neither did throwing their bodies at it, or a metal chair; over and over, the chair simply plunged into the shield's surface and stuck. They pulled it out for further attempts but the surface hardened, and finally, the chair bounced off and clattered to the floor, losing a wheel and the backrest and they gave up.

Half the Hub was on the other side of the time lock: the archives, the sub-etheric resonator, and the exits. The phones wouldn't dial out and the internet was a wash; the browsers simply timed out and email wouldn't send -- it merely threw the same error, over and over. It didn't stop them from trying.

Still, the ventilation was good, the water and electricity flowed and Ianto said there was a store of supplies for emergencies. Surely this would be sorted in no time.

 

**provisions**

"Guess it's not hours then, or days. Or weeks." Ianto gestured at the frozen counter, on the ninth day. 99:00

"It could be broken."

"It's _Toshnology,_ Gwen."

"True, but made of alien bits and bobs too, right?" Gwen leaned back on the sofa and brushed the hair from her eyes. "It hadn't been real-world tested at all, as far as we know."

The time lock was meant to enclose the entire Hub, but had isolated them from the threat when activated. Since the attacker, the what-was-it? Oh right, the Dalek, was _in_ the Hub, the time lock cordon had been apparently tossed up inside based on intruder detection.

There were stacks and stacks of supplies (Gwen cheered at the sight of loo roll) and foodstuffs on one of the accessible sublevels; American Meals-Ready-to-Eat -- field rations. _U.S Government Property_ , said the printing on the thick olive-drab plastic. Gwen was first surprised they weren't British rations and then again surprised they weren't stamped with the Torchwood T like nearly everything else in the Hub.

"They call them Meals Rejected by the Enemy,'" Ianto said, and Gwen grinned as she squeezed a bit of peanut butter onto his cracker.

"They're not that bad, though," she noted gamely as he stuffed it into his mouth. Between the heavy plastic packets with little heaters in them and the tinned fruit and veg, they had enough food to last them for a few decades. Team meals times six and five years worth of sealed rations for each. The 21st century is when it all changes, Jack had said. She guessed he'd preparing for something quite possibly very dire indeed. "So you knew about this stockpile? What did you think of it?"

"I... thought it was an excessive amount of Meals in Plastic Bags."

"Well, I'm grateful for excessive." She glanced at the bullets, still suspended in midair between them and the Dalek. She wondered if it could see them, if it was trapped in time as well.

The apple sitting on her desk hadn't even begun to soften, let alone rot, so the food apparently wouldn't spoil either, no matter how long they were here. Gwen pressed that thought way, way down, into the little ball of worry which sat inside her like the Cajun Rice w/ Sausage and Cheddar Cheese Pretzels.

 

**work**

The code base was inaccessible; some kind of fail-safe. If Toshiko had been here, there might have been a way to disable the shield, but that couldn't be helped. They made numerous password attempts, but everything they tried resulted in an Access Denied error.

"We could do the dictionary," Gwen suggested. "Set up a program to try every word. I mean, we could try-"

"Do you think Tosh would have used a dictionary word? It's probably Pi to 99 characters with zeroes and ones randomly thrown in," Ianto grumbled.

"Yeah. Probably."

 

They tried to play cards, but it wasn't distracting enough; you could still dwell on other things when you played cards, and Gwen complained that Ianto won far too often. Ianto settled on a routine of computer games _\--"Oi, could you put on the headphones? That music is driving me-" "Oh, right, sorry." "No worries, tea?"_ \-- and Gwen had begun to poke her way through Jack's lighter novels. They both dismissed the Complete Works of Shakespeare and War and Peace.

They'd worked for the first three weeks, clearing a backlog of paperwork. The routine was comforting, in a way. Gwen thought it was probably healthy, too -- she'd read books on incarceration and though this wasn't that _exactly_ , there were things that happened to people's minds when they were locked up. She dismissed the bits she'd recalled about PTSD from dealing with aggressive cellies and surprise searches by guards and convinced Ianto to stop marking ticks on the whiteboard, one per day. He rubbed the Sharpie-markered lines off with a flourish.

"Better?"

"It just felt creepy, like we actually are in a prison," she pointed out. "Or a dungeon."

"What? These luxurious accommodations?" He hoisted the metal bin and made for the incinerator.

"We're lucky we can burn the rubbish!" she called out. "We could be living a nest of rats."

"Mmm, rats," Ianto answered, over his shoulder.

He'd already pointed out that his watch was analog, and the movement displayed date as well as time. It was... handy. Sometimes he'd start and she'd look up. "It's two in the morning."

"Really?"

"Yeah."

"Right," she'd say, and he'd make for Jack's cubbyhole. It was weird how the lack of sunlight and structured days made a person lose track of the hour.

 

They'd tried structure, but there wasn't much else to do in the way of work without the ability to sort through artefacts and archives, and the Rift monitor was silent, so they stopped feeling guilty about skiving off. One night, they sat at the boardroom table over tuna and noodles and watched DVDs on the flatscreen.

"Independence Day?"

"Ha ha, Ianto. And by that I mean 'Ha. No'."

"Mars Attacks?" he suggested.

"Still not funny."

"My sense of humour is a dark one."

"I'd noticed that. Before."

 

**tick-tock**

"Ianto!" Gwen called out on the afternoon of the thirty-third day. He came to her side and followed her wavering finger. "Look!"

"Ninety-eight."

"Yeah. It must have... it must have changed."

"I don't know when it did. Haven't looked at it all week."

"Hmm." Ianto stroked his chin.

"Maybe, well. Could it have changed with the month?"

"If so, the time lock was apparently defaulted to 99 months." Ianto's eyes met hers. "Any... ideas?"

"Could be worse. Could be 99 years."

"Oh, there's a reassuring thought."

"Still, light at the end of the tunnel, right?"

"That's _eight years_ , Gwen."

Gwen paused, then tapped on her mobile, charged daily without fail to serve as a portable alarm clock, though it wouldn't dial out. "Calculator says it's eight years point-two-five. So eight years, three months, give or take a day."

Ianto crooked an ankle into one of the chairs and sat, folding his arms. "Look. It's just been over a month, right? That's- that's nothing. Jack will figure it out."

"'Course he will, sweetheart," Gwen said, sounding entirely unconvinced.

"Or the Doctor."

"Now, that's more likely. Could we dig out, you think?"

"Like in Shawshank Redemption?" Ianto shook his head. The walls were several feet thick with nothing but sandy soil on the other side; they were too close to the water. The sandy material of the substrate would just flow into any opening they'd manage to create. They'd already discussed it. They'd discussed everything they could come up with.

"Well, we've got some tools, and apparently plenty of time-"

"It won't _work_. It could take 30 years. And what's out there, anyway?" Ianto gestured at the only accessible CCTV feed, showing the Plass, empty except for the outstretched arm of the newsagent at his stand, frozen, just after he'd cut a free the string from a stack of newspapers. Even though the earth itself had moved, he still had to make a living, didn't he?

They didn't know, couldn't know, if he was frozen in time, or the feed was stuck on that frame here in the Hub. Both preferred to think it was the feed.

 

 

**everything changes**

"Fifty-eight days," Gwen muttered over coffee. They were down to cans of the stuff which Ianto clearly hadn't picked out. Still, there was a lot of it, and it was caffeinated, thank stars.

"Yup."

"You know, I haven't... " she coughed. "This is too much information, and I apologise in advance for saying, but it might be important. I haven't um, had my cycle come 'round."

Ianto knitted his brows, confused.

"My _female_ cycle."

"Oh. Right. Maybe it's the stress. That happens, doesn't it? In boot camp and wars and situations like that?"

"Maybe. Yeah, but we're not training for the Olympics, either. Maybe we're not changing in any way." Gwen paused. "Aging or anything. I mean, I don't mind that our hair isn't growing - saves effort trimming my fringe, or shaving, yeah? But it can't just be down to stress. We're not changing at all, are we?"

"Not physically, as far as I can tell. We might be a bit mental and stir-crazy by the time Jack gets us out of here, though."

"We're mental and stir-crazy now."

"Point."

 

**wardrobe**

Ianto dropped them silently on Gwen's lap. Four white t-shirts. She glanced down and then up at his face.

"These are Jack's," he said, simply. They'd been re-washing their own gear every few days, though Ianto had traded his dry-clean-only suit for a pair of jeans and a plain blue jumper he'd kept in his locker for weevil hunting after a week, but Gwen thought he'd looked very... uncomfortable dressed in things designed to be comfortable. In his other hand, Ianto held a clutch of clothes hangers. He waved them. "I'm going to start wearing his shirts and trousers. Do you want any of these?"

"No, I'm fine." Gwen had found a stack of clean scrubs in the Medbay. Too small for Ianto, but they worked a treat for her. And they had the washer, so there was plenty to wear. "But thanks for the t-shirts."

 

**missives**

Gwen flicked her fingernails against the edges of her thick spiral notebook, the one she'd written case notes in when she'd first come to Torchwood and lost in the bottom of her desk drawer. _Argolin: Green. Aggro. Smell a bit like Stilton cheese._

She'd write another letter to Rhys tonight, once she was settled in on the grotty sofa -- _her bed_ \--for the night with the afghan tucked in under her elbows. This was another thing she did every day. Frankly, she was running out of things to write: Still TRAPPED! WISH YOU WERE HERE! ONLY NOT! BECAUSE WE'RE TRAPPED IN THE FUCKING HUB.  
 __

_Day 88._

_Today Ianto and I cleaned the breakroom again. It was dusty. It's not like we really cook in there. I'm running out of things to read so maybe I should write a book. Ianto could too, and we could read each other's novels. That would be thrilling, no doubt. I think his would be an international spy caper and mine would be a holiday romance. The sort you take to the beach and dog-ear and get sand in but don't mind because you're slightly embarrassed to be seen reading it anyway. There are too many books about holiday romances in Tuscany and Provence already, though. Couple meet, start planting olive trees or build a vineyard, have mishaps, end up happy and successful and brilliant. Could set it in Swansea, but that's not exactly glamourous, is it?_

_Confession: I've already started writing it and I crossed out "Tuscany". Hmm. Bears thought._

_Not sure I have a whole book in me, Rhys. I could write my memoirs but I hate memoirs by people who aren't _old_. Because then what do they do later? Write another one. It's a ploy to sell the same book all over again, isn't it? "Updated with over 300 pages of new material!" People are so gullible._

_Hopefully this isn't the end and there will be more to tell. Hopefully you'll see these notes one day, no matter what happens to us, and realise how much I love you._

 

**personnel matters**

They'd had this conversation before, too many times to count:

"It was five years, wasn't it?"

"Yeah," Gwen answered. "With Hart. That arsehole. You think the two-week time loop thing was like this?"

"Might have been." Ianto brushed nonexistent dust from his trousers. He glanced up at the CCTV, still showing the newsagent on the Plass, his hand gesturing in midair, _and it had to be the CCTV frozen there, please let it be_. "So, you still think Jack will figure this out before the 99 months... I mean, his strap-"

"I never really thought he'd be able to- it apparently didn't help him when he was stranded before. He'd have had it then, right?"

"Yeah. Maybe. But-"

"Maybe they don't know. Maybe they've just assumed we're dead." Gwen pushed aside her Jules Verne. "They've probably had our funerals, Ianto. Jack's likely looking to replace us if he hasn't already."

"God." Ianto fumbled with his pen, nearly dropped it, and instead plunked it down onto Tosh's slightly-tilted desk.

"Not. No, I don't mean like that. Just... you know, in terms of staffing." Gwen stopped the pen rolling off the edge with one finger and handed it to him. "But do you think..." she trailed off. "When do you think they'll move on? Well, I mean eventually, but yeah, if Rhys thinks I'm dead? If Jack thinks you are?"

"I don't know, Gwen."

"It's like he's gone, not me."

"You're right here."

"Maybe _we're_ dead."

"What?"

"Limbo?"

"No, there's nothing," Ianto said. "There's nothing after you die."

"Jack says there's nothing. But he doesn't know."

"Gwen, he's died scores of times."

"Maybe his deaths aren't like... normal deaths. Really final, you know? Maybe there's a kind of tether keeping him here and bringing him back again and again. Maybe one day he'll finally be at peace."

Ianto was silent. He looked away for a moment. "Maybe we're tethered too. We're ghosts," he said, putting on a wavering tone, "ghosts who are haaaaunting the Hub. And Jack is shitting himself because that pen didn't fall to the floor and you're got his novels out of order."

"Yeah, right."

 

  


**night terror**

Gwen's bare feet slapped on the cold concrete floor as she ran for Jack's office. By some sort of unspoken code, Ianto kept the hatch door in the floor open when he slept, just like they always made sure to say if one of them would be in another accessible part of the Hub for a while. A faint light beamed upward. "Ianto?" Gwen called, kneeling at the edge of the hole in the floor. She leaned forward and peeked down, but Ianto was asleep, stretched out on Jack's camp bed, an aged paperback book facedown beside him on the blue-grey blanket, his thumb tucked inside.

"Ianto?" she called again, softly, but he didn't stir. She sat back on her heels but stayed there for a while, watching his chest rise and fall, before her knees got too cold and she slowly stood and walked back to the sofa. She put a light on and tried to sleep, but the familiar hum of the Hub wasn't that comforting.

"We're not ghosts," she said, to no one. "We're not."

 

**the box**

"Look," Ianto said, hefting the box onto the conference table. "I don't want you to flip out, but I have a plan."

"A plan?" Gwen quirked a brow and spread her hands out flat on the table's surface. She poked at the cool metal of the box with her thumbs. "Another? Are we up to what, Plan F?"

"We keep stuff in here. Letters, notes, files. Whatever we document over the course of the time lock. It's lead-lined and fireproof."

"Why? What for?"

"It's an archive. In case we don't make it." Ianto slid a thumb drive across the table and Gwen caught it before it plummeted to her lap. "Here, have a stupid stick. We've got a ton of them."

She peered at it; it was tagged with her name. "Have you been keeping a diary?"

"Yes. We can do video, too. I think we have a responsibility to document this. What if mainframe doesn't hold any data? What if we don't make it?" Ianto repeated.

"If we don't make it, Jack will remember us," Gwen murmured, as she felt the edge of the thumb drive bite into her palm, click against her wedding ring. "He can't die, and he won't forget us."

"Maybe," Ianto allowed. He turned the box around and showed her their names, stenciled on. When Gwen traced her first initial, she found the paint still tacky.

 

**communication**

"Do you have a Facebook?" Gwen asked.

"God, no."

"You've seen it though, right?"

"Yeah. I didn't see the point. Why would I want to talk to people I went to school with? Pack of rotters."

"You can make it private."

"Well, then what's the point?"

"No, I mean, just add your friends."

Ianto raised an eyebrow. "So that'd be... you and Jack then. Andy? Kathy?" He laughed. "You have one?"

"I do. I don't do anything with it, though. What would I put on the status line: 'Iced another Hoix today. They're right bastards but if you shoot them square in the face they really drop fast?' Anyway, Rhys got one and talked me into it."

"I didn't know Rhys did social networking."

"He talks to his mates and plays pirate... mafia or something."

Ianto nodded and then shook his head. "I have no idea what that is. It must be nice, though, to have mates outside work. No offence," he added with a grin, when Gwen mock-punched his arm. "God, we would have the most boring Facebooks ever."

"It'll be obsolete when we get out of here. There'll be some other big new thing." Ianto picked up a bag of M&Ms and Gwen examined the ragged edge of her thumbnail. "Rhys talks to his old sweetheart on it."

"Gwen, I'm sure it's nothing."

"No, I know. It's just. He'd been chatting and when I came home late once, I think it was that time we were tracking those bear things, remember? Well, the chat screen was left up. I didn't say a word, just shut down the PC."

Ianto nodded and held out the packet of candies, shook a few into Gwen's hand.

"She's divorced, Patricia. I think he must have... I think he left it there so I'd see it and feel bad, you know? Coming in at all hours. Like 'see here, Gwen'."

"Did you ask him about it?"

"No. Maybe I had it coming." Ianto offered her the rest of the bag, but she shook her head. "Have it coming. And now we're dead to them, so."

"But it takes years to be considered legally dead, right?"

She sighed. "Yeah. Sort of."

 

**talent**

"Ianto, what's your special skill?"

"My what?"

"Your special skill. Can you whistle symphonies or touch the tip of your nose with your tongue or... everyone has some skill like that." Gwen turned on the sofa and sat with her legs tucked under her, facing him.

"Counting cards."

"You! You... _fucker_!" Gwen put on a stern face but dissolved into laughter.

"What about you?"

"My special skill?" Gwen produced a 10p coin from her pocket and made a loose fist, then centred the disk on the knuckle of her index joint. Rolling her fingers, she flipped it knuckle-to-knuckle and back again.

"Show-off. You only brought this skills thing up so you should show me that."

"I'll teach you how."

"All right then," Ianto said, mollified.

 

 

**nature**

"Harvest!" Gwen placed a handful of strawberries on Ianto's desk and produced a slightly green tomato.

"Oh my god!" He stared at her, then plucked a berry from the napkin and popped it into his mouth, then grinned in ecstasy. "Fresh fruit!"

"We've got lettuce going, too. It shouldn't be long."

"This was the best idea ever."

"It's one of my top five, yes," she agreed, allowing herself a smug grin as Ianto ate. He wasn't the only one who had good ideas (chess set made from pill bottles!)  She'd found ancient seed packets in a metal cabinet in the greenhouse. Not many, but they could do clippings, maybe, from the plants. She'd started a garden in a back corner hidden from view, as a surprise. Ianto had found the stakes with faded old packets taped to them, and thought it wouldn't work at all, since the greenhouse had been set up with optimal conditions for the existing alien flora.  

They sat in there on the floor sometimes, just sitting under the artificial UV lights, smelling the hints of loamy earth in the vats as the plants, domestic and otherworldly, silently thrived around them.

 

**technicalities**

"It's seven years," Ianto said. He pushed a file drawer closed with his foot and leaned against it, reading from a sheet in a folder. "Okay, operating on the assumption that everything outside the lock is like normal, it says that usually, a missing person may be declared legally dead no less than seven years after disappearing without explanation, unless other convincing evidence of the person’s death can be shown." He looked up. "In England and Wales, the Family Division of the High Court holds proceedings for the presumption of death in the absence of a death certificate or other acceptable affidavit. The court may be persuaded that a missing person’s death occurred, if it can be shown the person was 'exposed to a specific peril of death' and the person’s absence remains otherwise unexplained. The court will also accept as evidence the military’s finding that one of its members has gone missing in action."

Gwen nodded. "Right. Knew that from the Heddlu. And the missing Rift victims. We push through a legal death cert if we can ID people out at the island. So their families can get the insurance without waiting."

"Yeah, and the... faked deaths, same deal, so yeah, legally seven years, right?"

"That part about 'specific peril' though," Gwen pointed out. "We have a risky job. It would be assumed that we're dead long before the seven years rolls round."

"Do you think that Jack assumes we're dead now?"

"We don't have a way of knowing."

"Because he'd give up after a while," Ianto said. "Don't look at me like that."

 

**imprisonment**

"Janet," Gwen said quietly. "D'you suppose she's alive down there?"

"Well, we can't get to her, so I suppose she's beyond the edges of the time lock, like Myfanwy." Myfanwy had been let out of the Hub when the Earth had begun to shift and she'd screeched and clamoured for release. Weren't departing flocks the first warning sign of impending disaster? Inspired, Gwen and Ianto had tried to scale the walls with the help of a rope harness and a ladder, but found the shield had an invisible _roof._

"I'd give her the scrambled egg packets." The growing pile in the corner of the storeroom were strictly last resort. But Janet wasn't picky.

 

**history**

"Remember that night we had to avoid ourselves? Or-"

"Or god knows what. Yeah. That was sort of terrible." Gwen rubbed her collarbone.

"Right. Terrible. I seem to recall you had a shiatsu massage."

"And you probably had another kind," Gwen grinned at Ianto and he cleared his throat.

"Maybe. Anyway, what if we came back at the wrong time? Earlier, I mean."

"That isn't possible, is it?"

Ianto rolled his eyes and gestured at the frozen Dalek. Bloody Torchwood made anything possible.

"Yeah. Well."

"We'd have to avoid ourselves for however long it was."

"Then what happens? There are two of us? Or... four of us." Gwen waved her hands. "Oh, you know what I mean. What happens when we catch up with ourselves? Or does that even happen?"

"Until we go into the time lock."

"And then we just let ourselves rot in here? Again? No. No way, Ianto."

"We'd fuck up our own timeline. We couldn't change history at all. Maybe we'd have to convince Jack to freeze us, and then take retcon."

Gwen made a face. "Not bloody likely, ending up in the past," she muttered. "Fuck. I think you've finally broken my brain."

"We're on the Rift. Anything can happen."

"I know. But tell me the truth; if we went back in time, you wouldn't change anything? Even though you aren't supposed to?" Ianto tilted his head and she continued. "Yeah, 'course you would. Warn Owen about the bullet? Save Tosh? You wouldn't stop what happened at Canary Wharf, or at the very least, tell yourself to take..." she paused, "to take Lisa on a holiday that week? You would."

"Jack didn't. Remember? Jack was frozen after being buried. He told them to do it."

Gwen stared at Ianto until his eyes met hers. "We aren't Jack. Jack has a lot of time, and he knows it. Jack's going to lose everybody, Ianto. All of us, one day. He's big-picture. All we've got is one lifespan."

"All right. Then we have to promise not to alter our timelines. We could... affect things."

"So we just avoid ourselves to get away from the temptation. Leave the country. Go to Tuscany."

"Tuscany?"

"It would be nice," Gwen said. "Better than being frozen, anyway."

"I'm buying stock in Google."

"Call this one Plan G, then."

 

**solitude**

He does this, sometimes. Retreats into a part of the Hub where she won't go, just to be alone with his thoughts for a while. Sometimes he cries. He doesn't say a word but a bit of characteristic pink puffiness about the eyes gives it away. She recognises it since she does it herself. It would be futile to cry together. They each have to be strong.

She'd like to hold him, to make it all better. But she can't. She can tell he wouldn't want that sort of coddling, anyway.

It never lasts more than half a day. They don't really talk about it, after.

 

**other people's stories**

"Come, let's away to prison;  
We two alone will sing like birds I' th' cage."

"That's a good one," Ianto said, glancing up.

"King Lear."

"Read to me?"

"All of it?"

"Why not? You have other plans?"

"I don't." She put her feet up on the coffee table and crossed them, and turned back to the beginning of the first act.

 

 

"Dost thou think because thou art virtuous there shall be no more cakes and ale?" Ianto read.

"I would fucking love a piece of cake right now."

"Or ale."

Gwen groaned. "Lager. Jesus."

"Well, we have those pound cakes," Ianto gestured towards the breakroom.

"Pound cake in a bag. Well, to be fair, they're not bad, really, with the strawberries. Boring though."

"After a while all MREs are boring. I was sceptical before, but now I think the idea of nutrition pills wouldn't be that bad," Ianto said. "Pop a capsule for breakfast and never have to face omelette-in-a-bag again."

"But I still want a pizza. A really great pizza, not the shit from Jubilee."

"With anchovies."

"Disgusting!" Gwen wrinkled her nose. "It's a bit stupid, isn't it?"

"You not liking anchovies is extremely stupid."

"Not that." Gwen elbowed Ianto in the side. "Being stuck in here, god knows what outside, and going on about missing body lotion and pizzas and getting a coffee at that one place on the Bay. It makes me feel shallow, sometimes."

"No," Ianto said. "It makes me feel normal." He put a ten-pound note in the book and placed the volume on the coffee table. "Wait, what place on the Bay?"

"The one. You know, the one with the bloke."

"The Most-Eligible Bachelor in Wales? That place?"

"Yep." Gwen blushed. "Tosh made me go with her, all right?"

"The coffee isn't even that good."

"I know."

 

**Day 388**

Sometimes, from the back, Ianto looked like Jack (though he'd forgone the braces in favour of his own black leather belt). When she stood near him, she thought sometimes she could still _smell_ Jack, but it was probably her imagination.

She'd called him Jack once, by accident. "God, I'm so sorry, you just looked-"

"I know. It's all right. I did that to a stranger in Morrison's, once."

"Called him Jack?"

"No. Mum." Ianto grinned. "I followed this woman around in the shop and put things in her trolley thinking it was ours. I didn't even notice until she said something. She looked exactly like my mother from the back."

"What's your mum like?"

"Dead."

"I'm sorry."

They said "I'm sorry," a lot, lately.

 

**discovery**

They found it, finally. A cache of vodka. They set aside two gallons aside for "medicinal purposes" ("Gallon jugs!" Ianto had exclaimed, in awe) and poured shots into plastic cups. They'd thought the jug containers in boxes in one of the storerooms were full of spare water or vinegar for cleaning. They'd turned up a lot of random shit in the storerooms, mostly useless. A crate full of acrylic clipboards was one. How many clipboards could they go through?

"So fuckeded up," Gwen said. She slid down the edge of the sofa to the hard floor next to Ianto. "You?"

"Shit drunk," he concurred, and pulled her over his lap, into a sloppy kiss. She kissed him back. It was endless and artless, like this whole mess of a situation. "M'sorry," he said, before his arms tightened around her waist and he heaved her back on the hideous plaid sofa she slept on, and he said it again when he accidentally yanked a strand of hair when pulling Jack's white shirt over her head.

 

  


"I'm so sorry."

"Don't. Why?" Gwen asked, pulling the afghan around them. The Hub always felt cooler and danker in the mornings, just as it had before the- Before.

"Because you and Rhys, and-"

"And you and Jack."

"Yeah." Ianto snaked a hand out from under the wool and rubbed his forehead. "Well."

"Well, we might never see them again. We might be the only ones left. There are a lot of things to be sorry about, but a shag isn't one of them."

"That sounds like a rationalisation. And like Jack's rubbed off on you." Ianto leaned over and retrieved his wadded boxer shorts from the floor in front of the sofa.

"No way, never!" Gwen said, and started to laugh, but it sounded hollow to her own ears. "I just don't want to-"

"What, ruin our friendship? You're right. We'll have to stop taking each other's calls and start hanging out with our other friends." Ianto stood. "Water? Paracetamol?"

"I'm parched. Ianto?" She waited until he met her gaze. "Thank you."

 

"Gwen?" he said later, as she watered the plants, her own hair damp from a hot shower. "You good?"

"Yeah. Yeah, I'm good. How's your head?"

"It's fine. It's..."

Gwen paused, waited for him to answer. "Hey-"

"It's fine."

"Okay."

 

 

Gwen noticed Ianto was poking through the drawers of Owen's old workstation again, for the third time this week. "Ianto-"

"Yup."

"What are you looking for?"

"Nothing in particular."

"Hey, do you want to... do you want to talk about this?" Gwen swallowed, arms folded.

Ianto took a deep breath and shut the biggest drawer. "No. Yeah. No. God, you know what? Honestly? I was so horny. You've been driving me insane lately, every time you bend over or reach across me for something. You smell fantastic. And have you stopped wearing a bra?"

"I have perfume. But I only have the one bra, and I didn't think you would notice. I'm saving it for special occasions."

"Like what?" Ianto straightened and leaned against the desk, next to her.

"I don't know....church on Christmas?"

"God would understand."

"Any God who'd leave us trapped for years on end doesn't understand much. Which is even, it's stupid, but I'm not even angry anymore. It's nobody's fault and-"

"Jack and I are, well, we're not. I don't know. He would understand."

"Oh, _he_ would, yeah," Gwen agreed, pulling at a piece of pink string from the afghan static-stuck to her t-shirt. "Rhys, no, I don't think. Definitely no."

"He won't have to know," Ianto said. "You're not going to tell him, are you? In one of your letters?"

"Oh, no. You'll probably tell Jack one day, though."

Ianto looked at her indignantly. "No I won't!"

"Oh, he'll get it out of you."

"He won't. I don't kiss and tell."

"You.. love him, though? You love Jack, don't you?" Gwen asked.

Ianto took a deep breath, then looked away. "You know, we really don't talk about it like that."

 

**after dinner**

"What difference does that make whether you talk about these things or not? How do you feel? Do you love him or-" Gwen was on one end of the sofa and Ianto the other. "You know what? I'm sorry I ate. I feel like shit again."

"Me too. That's really terrible vodka."

"No, I mean, I'm a shit. This isn't right. It's not fair to Rhys, or to you either. Any of us. I'm a terrible person." Gwen licked her lips.

Ianto turned at her change of tone and paused. "Look, if you are, I'm worse."

"No you're not. You didn't take a vow, Ianto."

"You... we... waited for over a year. I'd say that's-"

"It's not 'til death do us part' though, is it? A year isn't that long."

"Shit. I'm sorry," Ianto said.

"Stop apologising, really. It's not your fault."

"When we leave, we could... we could. There's Retcon."

Gwen sat up. "No!"

"We could do it now-"

"No. No, that doesn't make something _unhappen_ , does it?"

"It can." Ianto said, and sat back, tilting his head until it touched the back wall.

"It can't. Do you want to, though? Do you want to forget this happened? I mean, we were drunk, and..."

Ianto rolled his eyes and groaned. "Whatever you want, Gwen. I don't want to feel guilty about this. First off, I barely fucking remember... fucking. We were _very_ drunk." And he didn't want to say it but he'd thought it: _did you angst this much over fucking Owen?_ Because that was a long time ago and this was obviously different and were they even going to do it again? Probably not. Ianto didn't feel guilty about it at all, which had something to do with being Jack's... whatever they were to each other. Not married, anyway.

"No, it's all right. Could we not talk about it right now? Please? I'm just confused."

"Yeah."

 

**gossip**

_Dear Trina,_ Gwen wrote in the notebook:

_I'm sorry I haven't been in touch; The recent lapse is down to circumstances, but  I think we've only got together twice since the wedding and though you're not going to ever read this letter anyway, I promise to take you out for Thai when this is all over, if you haven't been killed by alien robot lasers by the time we get out of this time lock. Eight (plus) years is a long time, but we've been mates for ages so I hope you'll forgive me._

_It's just that I feel like a total shit, and you never make me feel that way when I tell you things. It's not being able to really talk to you (or Carrie either) since I took this job which, you know, maybe led to some bad decisions. See, I slept with a coworker. Actually, I've done it before, but that was completely... mad. And I wouldn't have back then except everything in my life was off-centre and turned upside-down. He and I weren't even friends, really, but this other colleague is someone I've got to know very well recently._

_This doesn't sound very good, does it? See, we were totally bladdered. But it was probably inevitable anyway. Neither of our partners are here and I know Rhys wouldn't understand, but I woke up this morning feeling like a human being (with a massive headache) instead of a prisoner...  Plus, I don't know what to do from here. I've never really done the "fuckbuddy" thing so what is the etiquette even like?_

_I... don't even know it this is what it is or what he wants or what I want, really. We really ought to talk about it but neither of us want to. Or we're dying to. I can't tell, though we talk about everything else under the sun._

_(Poor choice of words there, really.)_

_It's situational, see? Not that I don't find him attractive, because I do. He's your type, even; he's the one you asked about at the wedding, and then you were disappointed when you saw him dancing with the bloke Carrie fancied and followed around all evening, you remember. Or no, you wouldn't, actually. Retcon. Fuck._

Gwen read the letter over and shook her head. She thought she should write a novel about her life, but people would think it was a load of old bollocks. She tore the paper out of the notebook and ripped it to pieces, laughing so hard she gave herself a wrenchingly painful case of the hiccups. It took half an hour for them to go away.

 

**dreams**

"Where are you going first, when we can leave?" Ianto asked her for probably the fiftieth go-round. The answer sometimes changed.

"Swansea," she said this time, though she didn't hold out hope that her family were okay, anymore. "The cliffs open to the sea. It's beautiful." Gwen wanted to feel the spray on her face, the sun beating warm on the top of her head. Or maybe Greece. Tuscany was stupid. Somewhere hot and bright, anyway.

 

**diversions**

"We've seen people die. Our friends," Gwen said.

"Yup," Ianto passed her a book to change the subject. She got into these... moods, sometimes. "It's sort of rubbish, looks like."

Gwen ran a fingertip along the spine. "Scavengers in Space. Where was this one, then?"

"Propping up a chair leg in Jack's office."

She peered at the cover, 1950s astronauts. "I miss the moon quite a lot, really."

 

 

**kiss and tell**

"You did it in an office building?" Gwen asked, incredulous.

"Picked a lock and erm... on an executive's desk." Ianto looked sheepish. "It's a strange kink, isn't it?"

"Yup." Gwen sipped from her mug. "Hey, so what's 'naked hide-and-seek?"

"I have no clue whatsoever."

"Jack made that up?"

"Yeah. I guess he did. Or he didn't, but we weren't when you-"

"He's so weird."

"He is. He's-"

"He's _sexy_." Gwen blurted out.

"I think so," Ianto agreed. "Do you think..." he trailed off.

"What?"

"Do you think if you'd been stuck here with Jack, it would have taken over a year to-"

Gwen studied an exposed pipe running along the ceiling. "Yes. Not... I don't know."

"Jack wouldn't have needed liquid courage to get it on, though."

"No, maybe not. I probably would have, though."

"Really? Jack's very persuasive. Kind of impatient, too, once he gets his mind set on something like... that."

"It's funny, that. Jack being impatient. He has all the time in the world, doesn't he?"

 

**scissors**

"Ianto, would you help me with something?"

"Sure, what do you..." his voice trailed off as Gwen placed the cool black metal handle of the office scissors in his hand.

"Cut my hair."

"But..." _But I love your hair_ is what he didn't say.

"Look at it, Ianto." She pulled a wet hank of the dark curtain out to the side. "Bar soap, no conditioner, using that ruddy man-brush. It looks shit and I'm tired of it."

"It won't grow back as long as we're here."

"Doesn't matter, I've wanted to do this for ages. Will you cut it? If not, I will." Gwen sat in the wheeled chair and turned her back.

Ianto placed his hand on her shoulder. "If you're sure."

"Yeah, please. Do it," Gwen urged.

"You need a cape. I could get a towel."

"This isn't bloody Toni&Guy, just-"

"I cut Lisa's hair, once. She had short hair," Ianto said, realising that of course Gwen hadn't seen Lisa, before she'd... not even a photograph. "It was for her job interview at Torchwood, and she couldn't get a booking." His hand fell on Gwen's shoulder again. He felt her shiver through the blue cotton.

"Oh god, I'm sorry. Didn't mean to... here, I'll do it on my own." Gwen reached a hand up to take the scissors.

"No, it's fine. But I'm not an expert." He pulled a handful of strands forward to her chin. "Like this?"

"Shorter. Short like Winona Ryder in that film."

"The film with the-"

"The one where she's on the roof and Ben Stiller's an arsehole." They'd only watched that one a few times.

"Right. I'll do my best." Ianto took a piece of hair between two fingers and snipped off a few inches, watched it fall on Gwen's arm, waited for her to change her mind. She flicked it off.

 

**wargames**

"Suppose we _are_ the only ones left?" Ianto asked for the umpteenth time.

"You're totally obsessed with this idea, aren't you?"

"Well. No. It's not that. It's just... we don't know if the Daleks attacked everyone everywhere. What if we come out of the time lock and we're it. Or the planet's in the wrong place and everything's died?"

"Okay, I'll entertain this exercise. They couldn't kill everyone on Earth. The PM has a bunker, right? I'd bet the royal family would have gone in there, so even if there's no proper sunshine- And there could be miners who were underground..."

Ianto barked a laugh. "Royals, dignitaries, miners and the lads who control the nukes in their bunkers. That's what'll be left. And the miners will starve, if they haven't by now."

"There was time to get food. If there was an attack, there are probably plenty of people who hid out, like Rhys and our parents. Your niece and nephew." She swallowed hard.

Ianto ran a fingertip over the back of her hand, traced a freckle. "They're fine. All of them. I'm sure of it. When we figure out how to get out of here, we'll take a helicopter and pick them up. I've been playing Flight Simulator."

"Simple, then," Gwen said, softly.

 

**ritual**

Ianto tossed his latest thumb drive into the metal locker for the night.

Gwen pulled the sheaf of handwritten notes out of it and reached into her pocket for a small burgundy box. She wrapped the papers around it and fastened them with a rubber band, then shut the creaky door.

"What's that, jewelry?"

"Yes," Gwen said quietly. "My rings."

Before she settled on the sofa, she stopped at the CCTV monitor to say goodnight to Charlie, getting ready to sell newspapers on the Plass. "Good night," she said. "See you in the morning."

 

 

**celebrations**

"It's now officially August 16th. In Moscow anyway," Ianto said, glancing at his watch.

"How old am I now?"

"Thirty-two."

"Wow. Haven't aged a day."

"You look great." Ianto sliced a greenhouse lemon and dropped it into her glass. "Out of tonic, I'm afraid."

Gwen popped a pre-emptive paracetamol. The vodka really was crap. "I wonder if we'll suddenly age, when the time lock opens."

"Maybe we will," Ianto acknowledged. "At least... at least we will have had all of these extra young and healthy years, right?"

"Trapped underground. It's a good job we haven't had scurvy."

"Which makes me doubly glad we have citrus. But what if... what if it's 8 million years later when the clock runs down?"

"Then you'd better hope we _don't_ suddenly age," Gwen joked. "Or that we aren't held captive by a band of evolutionised apes."

"Is that even a word?"

"Don't know. It could happen," Gwen insisted, then reached for a fork, because a birthday was a birthday and there was pound cake, anyway. "I'd kill for some ice cream."

"Maybe the apes will bring us some, prior to the experiments. Or as a reward for tolerating the brain implants and anal probes with a bare minimum of screaming."

"Ooh, dare to dream."

 

**plans**

"You're asking me _out_?" Gwen squeaked.

Ianto felt a prickle of déjà-vu. He adjusted a slightly dusty stapler on the edge of Gwen's desk and glanced up at the ceiling. "I... yeah. Yes."

"Where will... what did you have in mind?"

"Just be ready at seven. Don't eat."

Gwen pulled her mobile out and glanced at the time, then shut it and stuffed it back into her pocket. She smiled and turned, then walked away.

 

 

"A picnic?" She asked. It did look like one, with the afghan _her afghan. She'd wondered idly where it had got to, earlier,_ spread over the floor of the greenhouse. "What's for dinner?"

"Your favourite," Ianto said, sitting cross-legged in front of her dressed in the same lilac shirt and grey waistcoat and trousers he'd been wearing when they were first trapped, and Gwen didn't think she'd seen him looking this comfortable in ages. He handed her an olive drab packet.

"Beef ravioli!" Gwen exclaimed, opening it with her teeth. "You shouldn't have."

Ianto handed her a plastic cup filled with pink-tinted liquid. "Behold."

"Lovely! How did you know that was my flavour?"

"I'm observant. Oh, nearly forgot." Ianto stood and switched off the overhead lights, torch in hand. He set it on the floor facing up at the ceiling.

"Ianto, the last battery-"

"Special occasion," he said. He adjusted the plastic ring around the top of the torch and pointed upward at the circle of light on the ceiling. "Thought you might like to dine beneath the moon."

 

 

Gwen was aware of his warmth under the shirt seams at his shoulders -- he'd pulled off the waistcoat -- and his scent; skin and the shampoo they both used and a hint of sweat. His lips shifted against hers, unhurried. Aware, present. In it. Not because they were afraid or despairing or three sheets to the wind, but because they w anted to.

One drink was all they'd had, plastic cups full of that vile vodka and crushed not-quite-ripe strawberries and packets of sugar, and his mouth on hers was intoxicating and then his hand came around her and travelled downward and she arched into him.

Hands, mouths everywhere, and his shirt was off, suddenly -- hers too -- and oh god skin-to-skin and it felt fantastic, so good that she actually ached. She felt him shift backward slightly and heard the plastic cup crack under his elbow, saw his neck tilt against the base of a terrarium. Breathless, she stopped, palm on Ianto's chest, over his heart.

"Are you okay?" Gwen asked. "The floor isn't-"

"-that comfortable," he managed. He captured her hand and crouched, then got to his feet, pulling her up. "Come back to mine?"

"Yes," she said, swallowing the last of her too-sweet drink. She bent to pick up her shirt but Ianto tugged her upward and kissed her again, walking her towards the door and Jack's office and the hatch in the floor leading to the room he now called his own. He went down the ladder first, turned on a tiny lamp clamped to the bedstead, and gestured at her to join him. She took a deep breath. She'd only been down there to search for hair products.

"Stop, Gwen." She paused on the ladder, two rungs from the floor below, legs shaking as his palms slid up the outside of her thighs to her waist. "There's a very important rule you're breaking."

"What's that, then?" she asked, breathless. She pushed her forehead forward, rested it on her hands where they gripped a rung.

"The no-trousers rule." Ianto's fingers went to the front of her jeans and opened the button, worked the zip and yanked them down, over the boots.

Then she was on the end of the camp bed, Ianto's bed, now, the wool blanket scratchy beneath her bare skin. She unbuckled his belt and found his button and worked his zip and yanked downward, same way. Two can play this, she thought. She licked her lips, and leaned forward, fingers tracing the silky-stiff length of Ianto's erection as he closed his eyes. She licked the shaft and felt him tremble, ventured a glance up and saw him looking down at her, need writ large on his face, before she took him in.

"Oh. Oh god," he moaned, and gripped her hair, short now, as his hips stuttered forward, and she wondered if he was thinking of Jack, then. This was his room, or theirs, after all. She inched forward, spreading her legs, and hooked a leather boot behnd his ankle, pulling him in closer.

"I'm leaving these boots on," Gwen said, fingertips teasing at his balls.

"Kinky," Ianto murmured. "Scandalous."

"Good job we shut the blinds. What would the neighbours say?"

"Good show?" Ianto ventured, and with a quick motion grabbed her legs and pulled her forward. He slid one hand up her thigh, to the edge of her leather boot.

"I thought it'd be sexy, you know... I don't have any sexy lingerie. Or any, erm... lingerie."

"Oh, they are. Sexy. You should wear them more often." Ianto bent her leg and kissed along the tender inside of her thigh and she sucked in a breath before he brushed against her softly with his lips, then engaged his tongue.

"G-good show," she managed. "Ianto?"

"Gwen."

"C'mere."

"Now who's impatient?"

 

**lift**

_Ding,_ went the service lift. Same way, every time they pressed the button. Ding open, choose a floor, door shuts, lift goes down one level to an empty storage area, doors remain shut. It didn't really make sense, except perhaps it'd been "resting" at that level when the time lock had engaged.

It wouldn't ascend to the back storage hallway in the Millennium Centre, though it was supposed to, which was just another thing on Ianto's list of the many things which pissed him off completely.

 _Maybe if he could get the door pried open_... He'd brought a metal bar he'd found and one of the lidded storage boxes to use as a door block. If he could just get the lift door open, get it to stay ajar, maybe if the lift went down to the lower level, maybe they could... Ianto thought about maybe ascending the shaft somehow, wondered if the shield's "ceiling" didn't reach to the lift shaft. It was daft, but-

He leaned into the open door, hit the lower-level button and stepped out, then shoved the box unto the closing doors. He watched as the box bent at the sides. The lift stayed put with the door open. He grabbed the metal bar and hefted it from hand to hand, then slid the bar between the doors to keep them ajar and kicked the box into the lift.

He'd been standing, but dropped to the ground in agony when the bar slipped and doors slammed on his forearm. He gripped the edge and wrenched it out with his last bit of strength and edged forward on his knees, trying to make it to the door. The pain was almost unbearable. Ianto pushed back his sleeve and was sick on the ancient lino.

"Help!" he shouted, but his own voice sounded tinny and weak even as it echoed. "Gwen. Please. Help."

 

 

When he came to, his arm was packed snugly, splinted with an Ace bandage around that to secure it, with two neat metal clips attaching the end. He lifted his elbow tentatively.

"Oh thank god you're up. Don't move it. Just stay still."

"Broke my arm, I think," Ianto said, faintly.

"You did. The bone-" _His arm had been bent. Bent wrong and oh god it had squeaked but I had to, and- Jesus._

"The bone. Bleeding?"

"Yeah, just a bit, but it wasn't much. You were out of it, practically delirious but you actually walked in with me before you passed out again. I couldn't get you up, but... one of the books-" Gwen waved a hand and Ianto turned his head slightly, but gave up and tilted it back again. "You've got a cut on your head, too. Just stay still."

"Owen set it, huh?" he murmured.

Gwen paused. "Yes, sweetheart. Owen fixed you right up. Does it hurt?"

"Uh huh."

Gwen kept the fingers of one hand on his shoulder, tightening them as she pushed in the plunger on the syringe she'd prepared and gave Ianto another half-dose of morphine. She watched Ianto breathe in sleep for another half an hour before silently getting up and filling a pail with soapy water to scrub the blood and remnants of sick from the walls and floor near the lift to nowhere.

She remembered where she'd stopped in Owen's reference books - the sections on what to do if a limb is actually crushed, or if the break isn't clean or the bone is sticking out of the flesh, arterial bleeding inside, nerve damage, things about plates and pins and things they didn't have because Owen mostly dissected things instead of putting them back together and it didn't matter if they got an infection because they were already dead weren't they and they had a bone saw if she'd had to... but she couldn't and- maybe, last resort, she'd have had to freeze him, like Tommy. And. There wasn't another glove, but if there had been, maybe. No. Maybe. Gwen rested her forehead against the wall and fought her own rising bile, then sat back on her feet.

She wept silently as she rubbed at the stains, and finally allowed her hands to shake.

 

**luck**

Ianto rolled the ten pence coin from knuckle to knuckle, dropped it, tried again, then flipped it up and caught it in the same hand. "I've been reading the personnel files. Average tenure at Torchwood Three: four years. Think of all the records we're breaking."

Gwen was silent as Ianto continued: "Couple of cases that look like Retcon, _two_ high treason incidents. Mostly duty casualties, though. Death by alien. Then there was the one bloke who fell into a-"

"If something happens to me, I don't want to be frozen in a morgue drawer."

"Nothing's going to happen," Ianto reassured her. "Five years and we haven't even had head colds."

"You could have-"

"Look, patched-up. Healed just fine." He raised his arm and bent his wrist. "It doesn't even ache anymore."

"I'm serious, though, Ianto. I want you to promise me. Do you promise that if something happens, you'll put me in the incinerator?"

Ianto looked horrified, the colour draining from his face. "I-"

"I know it's horrible. I just can't... I don't like the thought of being cold and forgotten in an icebox. After Suzie- Please promise."

"I promise."

"Four years, huh?"

"At least we're not at any risk of being hit by buses." Ianto picked up the coin and rolled it again, this time successfully.

 

 

**worries**

"What if it doesn't work, Ianto? I mean, what if the time lock doesn't disengage at zero?"

"That would truly suck," he said without looking up. He was intent on a sketch of a ship, based on a sketch of a ship in one of Jack's books.

"We'd be out of food a few years after that. Even taking the omelettes into account."

"God. You know, let's just... not even think about this." Ianto put the pencil down.

"Have you ever read that Stephen King story where a surgeon is trapped on an island or something, and he cuts off his own feet and eats them?"

"I must have missed that one."

"It was totally macabre. He went insane by the end. I think he ate his own hands last, raving about 'ladyfingers' or something."

"But wait. How could he cut off his fingers without using his fingers?" Ianto wrinkled his brow.

"I think he probably just bit them off."

"Christ, Gwen."

"Or it could be like those footballers who crashed in the Andes, who resorted to cannibalism. Or fuck, those creepy... the Beacons." Gwen finished with a shudder.

"I'm not going to kill and eat you, all right?" Ianto rolled his eyes at her.

"I know, but if something happens, maybe you should freeze me after all, just in case. Forget the incinerator. I'd be okay with that."

"You'd be okay with me rolling out your morgue drawer, sawing off a shank and making stew once a week?"

"Why not? I'd be dead, right? Come to think of it, we should eat Gray first."

"Stop it. You're so fucking morbid. I can't believe you thought I was the dark one, here."

"I'm just saying, I'd be fine with that, should I die of natural causes." Gwen pulled a sheet of A4 over and picked up a pencil. She began to sketch the sturdy limbs of an oak tree.

"That is not going to happen, all right?"

"Well. I certainly hope it doesn't, but-"

"I'd eat a bullet before making stew out of you. Or even Jack's evil nutter brother."

"Me too." Gwen pushed her sketch over to Ianto, and he added a hill in the background. "You're really getting good at two-point perspective."

"Thanks." He reached for one of the American chocolate bars in the centre of the table. "Look. Butterfinger. It's made of real fingers!"

"Ladyfingers." Gwen grinned and swatted at his wrist. "Come on. Let's watch Spice World."

"Again?" he groaned. But secretly, he loved Spice World. And he suspected Gwen knew it.

 

**day zero. 99 months (8.25 years)**

 

"Let's get away from here."

"That's the plan, right? I never want to see the inside of the Hub again."

"I don't know... I'm..."

"It's.."

"Scary. I'm scared."

"Yeah."

Ianto took her face in both hands and kissed her soundly, then lifted his weapon and retreated to the side of the room. "If the shield just... disappears, we need to neutralise the threat; make sure we're out of the line of fire." They'd discussed and rehearsed this scores of times. There was a fairly good chance they'd be mowed down by lasers anyway, but it was better that than to be trapped somewhere else later. They couldn't hide from it forever. Hopefully they could disable it long enough to head for the lift.

"Ready. I've _been_ ready." Gwen adjusted her grip on the weapon, hands slick with sweat. "Rather die on my feet, and all that."

Minutes ticked past, and the the time lock finally clicked over. 00:01

Then 00:00

Gwen braced to fire at the Dalek, but nothing happened. They waited, frozen as if mimicking Charlie. But nothing changed. The bullets stayed aloft, trapped in the transparent shield.

When Gwen finally lowered then raised her gun again, Ianto gently took it from her and placed it on the desk behind him before taking her hands in his own.

"I wasn't-"

"I know. But you thought about it."

She hesitated. He knew her better than anyone. "I wouldn't have. It's just good to know we can escape if we have to."

"Don't ever do that to me. Ever."

"I won't." Gwen's voice shook as tears filled her eyes and Ianto crushed her to his chest. "I won't leave you alone."

"Good. That's good." Ianto took a deep breath and picked up the metal box to bring downstairs with them, just like always.

 

**open sesame**

"Hey, what'd you do, celebrate? I miss everything."

"What day is it?" Ianto croaked, when he opened his eyes, let them adjust in the murky dim and saw Jack. _Jack_ looking the same as always, but then he would, wouldn't he? He sat in shadow, on the stool a few feet from the camp bed. Ianto gave himself a huge measure of credit for not-

"Hey, don't freak out on me."

"What _year_ is it?"

Jack hesitated. "It's... Tuesday. Are you hung over?"

"Don't, Jack. Don't fuck around. What's the date?"

"Tuesday, July 8th, 2008."

"Oh." Ianto blinked, shaking his head. "The counter ticked over last night and we... and nothing happened so we went to bed. Guess it wasn't exact. When did you...?"

Jack checked his watch. "About an hour ago when I came down to get my wallet. Lots to tell you about: war in the Medusa Cascade, destruction of the Crucible. Heavy. But you missed all of _that_. Parallel transdimensional anomaly. It's also lunchtime, by the way. Ordered an extra pizza."

 _And this was a stupid conversation to have with someone you haven't seen in eight years,_ Ianto thought. "There's a Dalek-"

"I found nothing when I came back to the Hub. Nothing. And there's nothing there now. The move knocked a lot of things over, but everything's fine. Back to normal. Such as it is."

"Maybe." Ianto swallowed,  and he didn't _know_ \-- it was likely paranoia -- but Jack's tone sounded false to his ears, as if he knew something was way, way off, and didn't Jack know almost as much about the time lock as Tosh did?  And he'd been with the Doctor when the lock had engaged? The Doctor, who knew a hell of a lot more than anyone else about... most things. He could travel into the future, as far as Ianto knew.  He pulled Gwen close, his palm sliding against the cool skin of her back, skimming the sheet wrapped around her like a shroud. "Rhys. He's okay?"

Jack leaned back in a stretch, his face still cloaked in shadow. "He's shaken up. Well, the planet's-"

"Understandable."

"Yeah, I told him everything was fine. He didn't buy the whole 'tectonic shifts brought on by an asteroid eclipse' cover tale on the news. Because it's well, bullshit. But I told him you were both out dealing with Rift debris cleanup in Tregaron and couldn't be reached. He's left about sixty messages in 48 hours. I didn't know how to disengage the time lock. Sorry."

"Can you keep your voice down?" Ianto whispered. "It's just that... "

"Do you have a hangover? I'm not going to ask about-"

"It's been a bit longer than 48 hours for us, Jack."

 _"_ What? _"_ Jack leaned forward.

 _False note_ , Ianto thought.  But maybe he was imagining things. They'd probably never know.  And maybe it didn't matter, because you couldn't undo things. You really couldn't. All you could do was decide where to go from where you were.

Gwen stirred, her breath a warm puff against Ianto's collarbone. "Ianto?" she murmured fuzzily, half-asleep, and burrowed into the crook of his arm.

Ianto's eyes sought Jack's in the half-dark. "Could you... would you leave us alone for a bit?" Ianto whispered. Jack was still, then nodded and stood, the sweep of his coat familiar as he ascended the ladder and stepped away from the hatch door above.

"Gwen. C'mon Gwen, get up." Ianto stroked her back. She always took forever to wake up. One eye at a time. He smiled into her hair.

"Hmmm."

"Come on." He smoothed the soft expanse of skin beneath her jaw before pressing his lips to her temple and whispered, "Gwen, wake up. It's over... hear me?" Gwen raised her head slowly and stared at him - he couldn't see her eyes clearly, even this close, but Ianto could feel her gaze through the gloom, hear the hitch in her breath. "It's over. It's all right." He felt her fingers graze his cheek and yes, a hint of stubble so... yes.

"You mean-" Gwen sat up, then leaned back in a stretch, instinctively reaching behind the head of the mattress. Her fingernails hit the edge of the metal box full of letters and files and voice recordings tucked between the bedhead and the wall, tapped upon it. She sighed, relieved to find it there.

"Yeah, but, things are... it's Plan..." Ianto searched for the appropriate letter and shook his head. "Just, let's get out of here." Though summertime in Cardiff was as likely to be rainy as not, Ianto knew she wouldn't mind. "Let's go for a walk in the sun."

 

  


  


**ETA:** [Of course there's a _soundtrack_ ***click***](http://www.playlist.com/playlist/19442053643)


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